PRACTICE MARKETING blog

I usually put cool web-based resources and tools in my “cool web resources” area - located on the lower left of this blog. But this tool takes the possibilities of our image-based branding to a whole new level. As someone who often helps edit and enhance images, this web-based image editor is impressive not only in its results - but in its innovative process:

It’s hard to fully explain what Rsizr (as in “resizer”) can do for your photos. Their blog image gallery (cool layout, btw) quickly shows the possibilities.  I appreciate the behind-the-scenes video (below) that shows HOW this technology works! Sometimes when new services seem “too good to be true,” or seem “just like” something else, it’s good to get a little technical.

I hope the mumbo-jumbo doesn’t throw you, but rather illuminates how innovative this tool can be for you. I haven’t yet played with this, since I just learned about it through the Mashable blog. But I am already imagining the possibilities of this web-based image editor. It could use a better help function, but with a little practice, you (or your assistant) should be able to use this amazing image editor.

If you do play with it, please link your own gallery here for us to check out. Together, everybody achieves more.

Read Full Post »

I learned about this through the Mashable blog post:

Widgetbox - home of my own ‘blidget‘ (which allows you to embed a blog widget of my recent posts) has created a simple Facebook application builder: The App Accelerator. Whatever you can create in HTML, including Flash, can be converted into your very own Facebook application.

A few months ago, Facebook opened up its network to any software developer to help its users customize their on-line community experience. Since then, we’ve been flooded with ways to express ourselves, test our personalities, give each other cutesy distractions.

And now you can join the fun. Facebook applications are naturally Pollen (aka, viral). While you can create your own blog-widget Facebook app, a more user-centric (and self-expressive) opportunity would probably take off faster.

I haven’t yet experimented with it.. but I plan to! Tell me what you’re creating, and I’ll be sure to add your glitter to my Facebook page.

Read Full Post »

What’s the biggest objection given to you by prospective clients?

What’s the biggest misconception or stigma about your service, product, or profession?

What’s wrong with the dominant professional (famous celebrity) in your field?

They’re thinking about it whenever you sit on the other side of the table.  Even if you don’t bring it up, it’s looming in the back of their mind.  You don’t have worry about it.

You can turn objections into your best personal brand marketing tool! Listen to the podcast and discover how I helped 2 professionals dance with the 800 lb. guerilla in the room!

Tell us about the biggest objection, misconception, or myth folks around talking about … behind your back.  Show us how you flip it to your favor.

HINT: This is an example of how to use Buzz Stream #6, as featured in the audio-book INSTANT BUZZ.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [6:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (2178)

Read Full Post »

I am very ardently pro-copyright… I’m in the Intellectual Property business, after all. And you should be too (both points).

I find this funny at first blush; but it is very alarming: Apparently, Virgin used a Creative Commons picture of a young woman in this advert (Australia). It was kind of making fun of her (with the Virgin pun, no less).

The picture was taken from Flickr, seemingly under the ‘appropriate’ commercial rights, and altered (mirrored). But the young woman (nor her family) was NOT involved in the decision-making process, were NOT notified, or compensated.

It seems that the young woman never granted rights to her image, but rather ‘a friend’ did — possibly without understand the full possible consequence. (I guess he never figured her friend would be plastered all over Australia tongue-in-cheek.) Her family is apparently suing Virgin, as I came to know through the AdFreak blog.

The comments from the young woman displayed in the ad, her brother (filmmaker), and other interested bloggers are well worth the read. You may like to add your 2.0 cents.

FYI: Creative Commons - half search engine; half standard creator - allows image-makers to create less-than “All rights reserved” images to be used in a variety of ways; commercial usage is explicitly stated (or denied). It’s a useful image resource for designers, et al. when used properly and ethically.

Read Full Post »

10 years ago today… well, yesterday… I launched my SUNY Albany’s creative writing magazine, The Fountain Pen. The name was a pun on all the celebrated fountains around campus. Earlier this month, 10 years ago, I had produced an advert calling for submissions.

The call to action was simple and to the point. I started the magazine because there was a void: Our campus of over 20,000 students did not have a creative writing & arts magazine; and more selfishly, I didn’t have a soapbox for my writing.

(Incidentally, I got into a lot of flack because I didn’t feel censoring the rants of our students was prudent. As you can imagine, the angst and diversity could clash with more conservative viewpoints. I defended our write to express ourselves to the end.)

And now, 10 years later, my plea to you is to do the same. It need not be poetry or short stories, but articles from your expertise will help position your personal brand.

The Albany Student Press, and The Fountain Pen, used to have a Wikipedia page… alas, it is now gone. Ah well, at least I still have my original ad hanging up and the original issues somewhere.

Read Full Post »

Ah, there are so many ways we can influence the way people perceive our personal brand. But our real personal brand - our genetic code - is hardwired (for now).

What if we could understand (and improve) our whole DNA, and our genetic strengths and weaknesses? And what if we could have our medicine tailored to our genes? And what if we could google our genetic family tree & our distant relatives? Well, welcome to the future personal brand community:

23andMe.com, started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google founder, Sergey Brin, is going to help us store, analyze, and possibly create a search-based community of our genetic code — for free. Google has invested about $4 mil into this company; and has many genetic research companies as investors too.

A couple of the blogs I read referenced the Forbes article about it. It’s worth the read. And the webcast about the company powering the genetic deciphering (Illumina) is also facinating. Preview the audio through the slideshow; it can get a bit technical, but fast-forward to the truly sci-fi future we will experience in the next few years.

The future is now. Your personal brand community is about to go genetic. And our family tree is about to expand big-time!  …talk about personal brand SEO!

Read Full Post »

Much ado has been made about our personal brand “Google Quotient” - the search results when folks look us up. I’ve had mixed feelings about it. No doubt we need to have a presence, but how often are people googling our names… or are they really googling other more relevant search terms?

Well, I know people do google me (and people with bosses have to deal with this phenomenon more often). And when people google relevant search terms, they find this blog.

But yesterday morning I got a wonderful compliment. And as a speaker, it will happen to you too:

I was presenting in front of the Independent Real Estate Brokers, a group of uhm… well, figure it out. After my persentation, “From Broker to Expert,” one of the participants came up to me with her smartphone in hand. She exclaimed, “While you were speaking, I googled you!”

While that means she wasn’t really paying attention, I still took it as a compliment. She went on to say, “Wow, you popped right up… I guess you know what you’re talking about.”

Nowadays with the ubiquity of the Internet in the palm of our hands, we definitely have to be conscious of our personal brand Google rank. People will google you to your face, and then talk about you behind your back.

So more important than even having a personal brand web presence, is to make sure it’s all consistent and in alignment with your personal brand character (often this means it should be positive).

It’s amazing how our professional and personal worlds are colliding:  It started with our cell phone number.  Our Facebook profiles are making ‘friends’ out of our ‘colleagues.’

During my activist rallies and media events in college, we used to subscribe to the bumper-sticker philosophy, “The Personal is the Political.”  Nowadays, I suppose, also “The Personal is the Professional.”

Read Full Post »

Your seminars, workshops, and classes shouldn’t just be educational. It should be entertaining; role model a showman.  Your presentations (that is, performances) should be memorable experiences… of what makes you different & better. Your personality needs to shine through… not only through the subject material, but through the THEME EXPERIENCE.

On Sept 18, I will be the MC for the Cross Island YMCA & Strong Kids: A Perfect Match fundraising dinner and awards ceremony. I sit on the Board for this Y and chair our Strong Kids campaign (we give grants to families who cannot afford the YMCA). Among the 3 honorees, we will be awarding our past Board chair (and my current client) Dan Gerstman.

Through consistent design, decoration, and puns, we will be serving a Tennis-themed evening. As the MC, I noticed that the microphone was inconspicuously ignored from the theme. But what a perfect opportunity to decorate the head! So I cut up a tennis ball (around its seam) and the rubber naturally wrapped itself around the microphone. It will be able to pick up my voice clearly through the top and side that is to me (uncovered by the ball). To the audience, it will be a subtle treat (and I’m sure most will notice — and remember).

The next time you have to (that is, get to) step up to the mic, make it yours! Keep all the decorations consistent and in alignment with the theme. Your creativity personality will shine through. And thus, you will brand yourself in another memorable way.

Isn’t it amazing how we remember the small, odd details!

What kind of extraordinary incidentals have you experienced?

Read Full Post »

It happened to me again: I was commenting on somebody else’s blog, and I got inspired to elaborate on my point here. (You can read my comments, featured on other people’s blogs, on the lower right hand side of this page, later.)

Branding is all about pulling prospects to you (or your product) with an emotional connection… We’re moved by great brands; great brands are movements. The Culting of Brands is a great book on this subject.

Corporate Brands force this emotional connection: After all, it take mighty marketing mavens to have us fall in love with what is really a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar, conglomerate. But we do.

Personal Brands, on the other hands, have natural emotional connections. We are a naturally inspired, moved, and are attracted to other people. As we start focusing on what makes our character and charisma distinctive, we immediately differentiate our competency. As we focus on a community to which we can relate, we naturally develop personal brand appeal.

A happy medium between corporate branding (what I call a “forced emotional connection”) and personal branding (aah, “natural emotional connection”) is Mascot Branding. For those of us who don’t want to really capitalize on ourselves, or make our business dependent on our reputation (a vulnerable position as Martha and Imus both felt), we can leverage the personal brand appeal of a MASCOT.

We can think of many other famous companies who use mascots to personify their own service, or their “evil” competitor, a lousy or great customer: In fact, we can vote on them and see the winner parade at NY’s Advertising Week “Favorite Icon”.

Marketing a mascot is just like marketing any other personal brand. We can build a whole world around our mascots even, as the Caveman’s Crib is doing: It’s an experience worthy of its distraction — learn a few “immersive experience” marketing lessons from playing around on the Caveman’s Crib website.

If you don’t want to leverage your reputation, or want to embellish your own personal brand… consider the route of the Mascot. For example, Adam Schwam, founder of Sandwire - a computer technology services company, regularly uses mascots in his marketing and advertising. I interviewed him last summer for a book that I’m writing. Since then we’ve grown a cool relationship; we’re working on writing a “marketing technology” column together and more. (In fact, his illustrator, Michael Mastermaker is the one who drew me for the cover of my Audio-Books.)

I’ll be visiting a new client this afternoon. I know he wants to sell his business after a few years, so he may not want to develop and leverage his own personal brand. Let’s see if he can think outside-the-box of what’s traditional for his industry. By creating a legendary mascot, he would immediately set his company and his “commoditized” service apart. When he’s ready, he can also very easily sell the rights to the business & its mascot - an income-producing asset.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [5:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (439)

Read Full Post »

I took this pic around the corner from me. Surely your neighborhood is no different…

One of the simplest ways to attract buzz about your services or products is to promote around a specific holiday, season, date, or cycle.

Think about your niche prospect/client target market Community: What special dates, events, holidays, or seasons are special to them? Every community “celebrates” (or dreads) certain times of the year — and everybody in that Community knows about it. If it’s not clear to you, target your market some more, or do some more homework.

It’s B2B season again… back-to-business. Now that the kids are out of your hair… Let’s market your personal brand!

Read Full Post »

Second to Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin is my role model. I believe we can learn a lot about our own careers, pitfalls, and successes through our role models. Rick Rubin is featured on the cover of this week’s NY Times magazine. He has produced the best albums and hits in the mainstream music industry. Rick Rubin truly is a MAESTRO!

As you know, the music industry is in shambles. In May, Columbia Records recruited the legendary Rick Rubin to re-innovate them; Rick Rubin became Chairman of Columbia Records. Rick Rubin is a maestro with a personal brand all his own. Read the cover story! You will learn a lot on how to stand out and reshape - not only your career - but your whole profession.

Some [useful marketing] quotes by Rick Rubin from this week’s NY Times Magazine cover story:

• “I still believe that if an artist gains the belief of the listener, then anything is possible.”

• “I have no training, no technical skill — it’s only this ability to listen and try to coach the artist to be the best they can from the perspective of a fan.”

Read Full Post »